Sunday, July 12, 2015

Good Guilt is the guilt we incur for the sins we need to commit, if we are to grow and fulfill ourselves. This paradoxical “twist” to the conventional meaning of guilt is the seminal idea behind Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way.

In common parlance, the words “good” and “guilt” don’t belong together. They appear to be contradictory. Personal and clinical experience, however, has repeatedly confirmed for me the useful role of sin and guilt in personal and psychological development. I began to notice that there are times in our lives when the experience of guilt actually was a signal of having done something good, even essential to nurture us. While the guilt probably did not feel like “Good Guilt” at the time of transgression, the “sin” that caused the guilt is sometimes viewed in retrospect as having brought something valuable to our life. Examples might include divorces, separations from partners and friends, giving up family-approved or family-dictated careers, or even marriages that are opposed by one’s family on the grounds of race, religion, gender, or social status. It might also include the expression of qualities previously rejected as unacceptable, like selfishness or the contra-sexual sides of ourselves. Later in life we may look at guilt thus incurred in a different light.